27: Chapter 27: Saving the entire ship in four seconds, the alien beast: Are you being polite?

The air in the Command Center was frozen solid.

On over thirty screens, eight giant tentacles whipped up monstrous waves, lashing out from all directions at the fishing boat swaying in the swells.

The desperate expressions of the four people on the boat were projected onto the screen wall via high-magnification lenses.

Section Chief Han Zheng slammed his fist onto the console, leaving a shallow dent in the alloy surface.

"Is there really no way..."

His voice was hoarse.

Just at the moment the tentacles were about to shatter the ship's hull—

A person appeared on the screen.

No sonic boom, no trajectory; in the previous frame, there was nothing, and in the next frame, he was just there.

Standing on top of the Abyssal Tide Beast's head.

A black trench coat, a half-face bronze mask, and his hands shoved into his pockets.

Inside the Command Center, the coffee cup in the communications soldier's hand dropped.

It wasn't dropped out of fear—it was because his fingers had lost all sensation.

The cup shattered into three pieces on the floor, brown liquid splattered onto his pant leg, but he didn't look down.

The Major General stood on the flagship deck, binoculars pressed against his eye sockets.

In the lens, the giant head with a diameter of fifteen meters filled his entire field of vision.

Corrosive slime flowed over the dark green scales, and magma-like red light surged within the massive vertical pupils.

Then, at the top edge of the lens, a pair of feet appeared.

Stepping on the scales, steady and secure, as if walking on the floor of his own living room.

The Major General's wrists froze.

He shifted the binoculars up an inch—black trench coat, half-face mask, hands in pockets.

Behind him were eight giant tentacles flailing wildly in the air, each capable of shattering a frigate.

He stood there.

As if waiting for someone beside a park bench.

The Major General's lips moved twice, but no sound came out.

He had commanded troops for twenty-seven years, gone through three live-fire military exercises, and one maritime rights conflict.

Never once had his brain been like this—blank.

The eight tentacles, wrapped in ten thousand tons of seawater, crashed down, less than three meters from the fishing boat.

They stopped.

Like a running machine that had its power cord pulled.

The eight tentacles hung in mid-air, the bone spurs at their tips trembling, and seawater cascaded down from the gaps between the scales.

They weren't blocked.

It was because the moment that person stood on the beast's head, the muscle bundles of all eight tentacles on the Abyssal Tide Beast spasmed for 0.3 seconds.

Instinct.

The instinct of a predator when encountering a higher-tier predator.

Su Chen stood on the beast's head; the scales beneath his feet were slick and cold, and the sea breeze blew into his collar, salty and fishy.

The system panel hung in the corner of his vision—

"E-rank Anomaly Entity: Abyssal Tide Beast. Marine subspecies. Weakness: The core brain mass behind the central vertical pupil in the head. The black mist defensive layer on the body surface requires temperatures above 2000℃ to weaken."

"Host's current flame limit: 2000℃."

"Host's current rank: Tier 2 Watcher. Comprehensive combat power assessment—far exceeds the E-rank limit. It is recommended that the host output at full power and end the battle quickly."

Su Chen lowered his eyes to look at the flat, round, giant head beneath him; the magma surging in the giant vertical pupils was reflected on the bronze surface of his mask.

A mental suppression wave radiated from the depths of the vertical pupils, the same kind of thing as the low-frequency tremor from the Shadow Erosion Beast in the factory last time, but the intensity was at least three times higher.

It hit him.

He felt nothing.

At Tier 1, this frequency would still have made him uncomfortable.

After reaching Tier 2, with 10 points of mental power, this bit of suppression wave couldn't even graze his skin.

Su Chen pulled his right hand out of his pocket.

He moved.

The way he vanished from the top of the beast's head was the same as when he arrived.

In this frame, he was there; in the next, he wasn't.

He appeared on the fishing boat's deck.

The captain, Old Zhao, had muscles in his arms that were locked rigid from gripping the helm; his pupils were dilated to the max, and his lips were blue-purple.

Thirty years of maritime experience allowed him to hold onto the helm tightly even when everyone else had collapsed; his knuckles were embedded into the wood, impossible to pry open.

Zhou Yu pressed Shen Nian beneath him, his back arched like a bent bow, his shoulder blades pushing out two prominent angles through his clothes.

Seawater poured in through the cracks in the deck, submerging his knees.

Su Chen grabbed Old Zhao and Zhou Yu by their collars, one in each hand.

Old Zhao's hands still maintained the posture of gripping the helm.

Vanished.

Appeared on the deck of the nearest destroyer.

The two were set down gently, but Old Zhao's knees still hit the steel deck with a dull thud.

Six armed sailors on the deck turned their heads simultaneously.

Three people had appeared out of thin air before their eyes.

A masked man in black, a soaking wet old fisherman, and a boy who looked like a college student.

A second ago, this deck had been empty.

No one had walked over, no one had climbed up from the sea, and no helicopter had dropped any ropes.

They had simply appeared out of thin air.

Then Su Chen vanished again, not even leaving a shadow of his coat hem behind.

The private closest to Old Zhao trembled his lips; he subconsciously looked at his comrades, and all six of them had the exact same expression.

Is this guy even human?

Appeared on the fishing boat for the second time.

Shen Nian was falling into the sea, her waist down already submerged in the foam; her fingers were clutching the last broken railing on the gunwale, wood splinters digging into her fingertips, and blood was washed by the seawater into pink streaks.

Su Chen scooped her up.

When his arm scooped around her waist, Shen Nian froze.

It wasn't fear—it was because the strength coming from that arm was too steady.

The sea was churning, the boat was rocking, the sky was collapsing, but that arm didn't move an inch, like a steel pillar welded to the earth.

Vanished.

Appeared on the deck, set her down.

The third time, the last person was curled up in the corner of the cabin, hands covering their head, fingers filled with tears and snot.

Su Chen scooped the person out.

Three teleports, four people, all delivered to the destroyer's deck.

It took less than four seconds.

"Look after them."

The voice was not loud; it wasn't a commanding tone, but more like a request.

After saying this, he vanished once more.

On the deck.

The four of them sat slumped on the cold steel deck.

Old Zhao knelt there, his hands still keeping the shape of gripping the helm, his ten fingers curled, unable to unclench them no matter what.

In his mind, only one thought kept spinning—

Just now, someone was standing in front of him.

Lifted him by his collar.

And then he was here.

What happened in between?

Nothing.

Old Zhao fell to his knees with a thud on the steel deck, his forehead hitting the ground.

It wasn't fear, it wasn't gratitude; it was that an old sea captain with thirty years of experience had encountered something that completely exceeded his worldview, and his body had reacted faster than his brain.

"An immortal..."

The voice squeezed out from between his teeth, laced with a crying tone.

"Truly an immortal..."

Zhou Yu sat on the deck, soaked to the bone, seawater dripping from his hair, running down his chin and onto the shoulders of Shen Nian, who was in his arms.

His hands were still clutching Shen Nian tightly, his posture exactly the same as it had been on the fishing boat.

Both of them were trembling.

Shen Nian buried her face in his chest, her shoulders heaving.

After crying for a few seconds, she suddenly raised her head.

"That person just now—"

"I saw him."

"How did he—how did we—"

Zhou Yu opened his mouth.

He had watched thousands of anime, followed millions of words of cultivation novels, and posted countless threads on forums about the brain-hole of spiritual energy revival.

Compared to what was before his eyes, those things were like playing house.

He raised his hand and pinched his own upper arm.

It hurt.

The red marks from his fingernails were exceptionally clear on his wet skin.

Shen Nian saw his action and reached out to pinch her own face.

"Hiss—"

It hurt.

The two looked at each other for a second.

Shen Nian laughed while crying, tears and snot mixed together, her face covered in salt stains and mess, her voice rising half an octave as she laughed and cried at the same time—

"It's real! It's not a dream! We didn't die!"

She turned her head to look in the direction where that person had vanished.

There was nothing on the deck, not even a footprint left behind.

"Oh my god..."

Zhou Yu's voice was shaking, but his eyes were brighter than someone who had just crawled back from the gates of hell.

He remembered something.

When that person had lifted him by his collar, the distance had been very close.

The sea breeze blew past the edge of the mask, and he saw the lower jaw exposed beneath it.

Young.

Clean lines.

Not some old immortal with a white beard.

It was a young man about his own age.

Zhou Yu clenched his fists, his fingernails digging into his palms.

That burning sensation surged up from his chest, reaching his throat, and transformed into a very soft sentence that only he himself heard:

"This is simply... too cool!!!"